1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc cartridge, and more particularly, to a disc cartridge that permits a disc to be easily ejected therefrom and enables an operation with being inserted into a disc recorder or a reader in a state that the disc is received therein.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, an optical disc records information on its surface by using a laser beam. The optical disc is recently highlighted as a large capacity of storage medium. As the optical disc, there are Compact Disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Laser Disc (LD) and the like. A group of Blue-Ray Disc and a group of Advanced Optical Disc group are being competed as a recent next-generation optical disc storage medium.
“Blu-Ray Disc” is aimed at a High Definition Video Disc Recorder (HDVDR), and is a next-generation optical disc storage medium using a blu-ray laser beam capable of recording a larger amount of data than a conventional red laser beam. Accordingly, the Blu-Ray Disc has a data storage capacity of 27 Gigabytes corresponding to a thirteen-hour amount of video data in a general cinema or a two-hour amount of video data in a HD television. The Blu-Ray Disc is being much concerned as a new storage medium for solving a drawback of a conventional DVD.
Meanwhile, a disc is received and kept in a separate case so as to safely protect a read-out surface of the disc from an external dust and scratch when the disc is kept and carried. Only when the disc is inserted into the disc recorder and reader, the disc is put out of the case for use. Further, the read-out surface can be easily damaged as the disc has an increasing record density and has a thin protection layer at the read-out surface. Recently, the cartridge with the disc being received is wholly inserted into the disc recorder and reader so as to prevent the read-out surface from being damaged while the disc is carried and inserted into the disc recorder or reader.
As described above, the recent disc recorder and reader is designed to receive only the disc or wholly receive the cartridge with the disc being received, according to its usage and purpose. For one example, since a portable disc recorder and reader should have a small size, it is designed to receive only the disc rather than to wholly receive the cartridge. However, the non-portable disc recorder and reader having a large size is designed to wholly receive the cartridge to safely protect the disc. Accordingly, in case where the disc received within the cartridge is used for the portable disc recorder and reader capable of receiving only the disc, the disc should be separated from the cartridge.
However, a conventional blu-ray disc cartridge is used with a disc 1 being mounted within the cartridge as shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. In more detail, the cartridge includes a lower housing 2 having a window 2a for allowing an external unit such as a disc recorder and reader to access a read-out surface (not shown) of the disc 1; a shutter for opening and closing the window 2a; a rotating wheel 4 for operating the shutter 3; a shutter latch 8 for maintaining a closed state of the shutter 3; and an upper housing having an opening 3a for exposing a label surface 1a of the disc 1. The upper housing 3 and the lower housing 2 are firmly fixed by a plurality of screws 6.
Accordingly, when the disc 1 is ejected from the cartridge, the plurality of screws 6 fixing the upper housing 3 and the lower housing 2 should be unscrewed, thereby causing an inconvenience. Further, in order to safely keep the disc 1 after the use of the disc 1, the disc 1 is again inserted into the cartridge and the screws 6 are screwed to firmly fix the upper housing 3 and the lower housing 2, thereby causing an inconvenience. Accordingly, the cartridge of FIGS. 1 to 3 cannot conveniently use the different disc recorder or reader receiving only the disc or wholly receiving the cartridge as described above.